Google Flutter moves out of beta with release preview 1

Google Flutter hits another release milestone on the way to version 1.0. Google Flutter, the cross-platform SDK is moving out of beta with Flutter Release Preview 1.

Flutter is one of the most ambitious projects of Google in the field of cross-platform app development. Flutter apps run on the Flutter rendering engine (written in C++) and Flutter framework (written in Google’s Dart language, just like Flutter apps).

Google Flutter reached beta as announced at Google I/O last month. It also featured various technical sessions, on topics like UI design with Flutter and Material, mobile development with Flutter and Firebase, and architectural practices for complex Flutter apps.

The shift from beta to release preview announcement was made during the keynote of the GMTC Global Front-End Conference in Beijing, China, a gathering of around a thousand front-end and mobile developers. It focuses on scenario completeness, bug fixing, and stabilization.

Release preview 1 features improvements to the video player package, adding broader format support and reliability improvements. Firebase support is further extended to include Firebase Dynamic Links, an app solution for creating and handling links across multiple platforms. 32-bit iOS devices with ARMv7 chips are also added, enabling apps written with Flutter to run on older devices.

Flutter release preview 1 also adds experimental instructions on adding Flutter widgets to an existing Android or iOS app. It also brings improvements to Flutter Tools. Flutter tools have a new update in the form of Flutter extension for Visual Studio Code. This extension adds a new outline view, statement completion, and the ability to launch emulators directly from Visual Studio Code.